Certainly, motherhood is pretty all consuming. Unless your hobby is currently "wiping gross things", then time will definitely be lost to that pursuit should you invite children into your home. And the neediness. Newborns need a lot, but so do nine year olds. And teens, I hear. The newborn depends on you for every little thing, you are all he wants, and his wants are his needs. It's funny because you think they grow up and they don't need you as much, but I've found that there is just a different way that they need you and make you feel as though you are spent at the end of each day. Mainly this involves talking about Minecraft. So, all of these little persons certainly do take a lot out of me. A lot. And I don't always handle it gracefully. I would say I rarely handle it gracefully. And if I start reflecting on all of that it can get pretty depressing, pretty fast. Sometimes I don't like who I am as a mom because I am impatient, angry, and harsh with the people I love the most. And sometimes that feels like I've lost my identity, because before the kids I wasn't that person at all.
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| Mom, I spilled my identity all over your kitchen floor |
Here's the thing: as a Christian woman, I have no identity except that which is in Christ. The Bible tells me my life is hidden with Christ in God. Think about our lives being hidden with Christ for a minute. If something is hidden it cannot be seen, right? Of course God made me to be a unique person with my own personality and likes and dislikes, but my identity does not lie in my ability to spend time doing things I enjoy. Nor does it suffer if I am serving others. Quite the contrary! I know people find this sanctimonious, but I really cannot find any scriptural basis for putting on my own oxygen mask first (as is the common phrasing nowadays from those who tell me I need to get time for myself). That is not what Jesus did, not how he lived. He did not carve out "me time" for the sake of his own pleasure, he was not "intentional" about "self care". He died. A horrible death. He surrendered himself for other people who were much needier than he would ever be. He did not waste time looking out for Number One as I so often do. Could you imagine Jesus telling us to stop bothering him because he needed time to pursue his own goals?
So. What do we do with that? We look to Christ as an example and stop fighting. Stop fighting to retain what we think of as ourselves. The navel gazing, the selfishness, the inward focus on how we are lost in a sea of diapers and spit up and Lego and mess. Surrender to his calling for us to lose our lives for His sake (Mark 8:35). We are in that sea, but we are not lost. We are showing the glory of God to our children! His glory is in sacrifice, love, and redemption, not worrying about who we are aside from all of those things. I think if we can do this, then it helps us see all the amazing ways we are blessed even when we feel at the end of our ever lovin' rope.
Go back to the oxygen mask for a second while I completely wear out this metaphor. Instead of thinking about putting on our own mask first, think of it like this: there is only one mask. Who gets it? As Christians, what are we supposed to do with the mask? Christ gave it to his enemies. In every moment of everyday, we have to decide who gets the mask. The beautiful thing, is, of course, that God gives us breath, just like he gave the widow more oil in her jars. The widow gave that oil away, she wasn't allowed to hoard it, and God kept giving it until she had fully atoned for her debt. And now my metaphors are mixed, but hopefully you can see where I'm going here.
God gives us children to help us turn away from ourselves. Of course it is painful. Because we are dying. We are dying to ourselves. That hurts. And sometimes it hurts a lot. It can be dark. But what makes it darker still is when we turn inward and focus on all that we used to be without the children involved, how lovely our lives were when we could pursue all of our favorite hobbies and pastimes. How patient and loving and kind we were to everyone -- before anyone moved in with us and really tested any of those qualities about ourselves by getting up in our personal space all day everyday. We can focus on trying to save ourselves by getting "me time" or trying to regain what we think will make us happy and give us peace. The truth is that God peels back those layers to show us something -- He shows us our need for Him. That we are truly sinful. It's not just that we lose it occasionally and are normally really great people. It's that, without the gifts he has given us, we are desperately, desperately small minded and impatient and quick to anger. Our kids show us this in ourselves everyday. Our kids show us we are not okay. They point us to Jesus every day! In all of our service to them, we should be praying that we would die to ourselves, that we could lose ourselves in service. And remember: "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:1-2)
